Pissant ...

President Trump speaking to reporters this week. He has reveled in a threat to target what he called “Democrat Agencies” for temporary and permanent cuts.Credit...Pete Marovich for The New York Times

It's the dems fault according to the useful idiot known as the Donald as he's the one in the know. Just ask the generals and senior enlisteds participating in the seance that happened on Tuesday at Marine Corps Base Quantico to see why Trump is the guy to lead this country forward in the year of our lord 2025.

When President Bill Clinton’s staff relegated Speaker Newt Gingrich to the back of Air Force One on an international trip, it went down in history as an epic taunt that triggered a government shutdown.

Mr. Gingrich was fuming after the long flight from Israel, during which the two never got to discuss their budget impasse, and after which he was made to deplane down the back stairs. His admission that the snub factored into his decision to shut down the government in 1995 earned him a cover of The Daily News, which depicted him as a diaper-clad toddler throwing a tantrum with the blaring headline “CRY BABY.”

The episode was considered one of the most enduring illustrations of just how ugly government shutdowns can get. Until now. 

Kinda appropriate is it not?

During the first government shutdown in nearly seven years, President Trump has used insults and mockery to try to bend Democrats to his will in ways that have no obvious parallel in modern history. At the same time, he is using the shutdown to make lasting changes to the federal bureaucracy to inflict pain on his political adversaries.

As thousands of federal workers faced mass layoffs and Americans faced critical service cuts, Mr. Trump on Thursday reveled in a threat to target what he called “Democrat Agencies” for temporary and permanent cuts.

“I can’t believe the Radical Left Democrats gave me this unprecedented opportunity,” he wrote on social media.

He has mocked Democratic leaders of the House and Senate by posting fake AI videos that were condemned as racist and bigoted, including one that showed Representative Hakeem Jeffries, the House minority leader, with a fake mustache and a sombrero.

The White House doubled down and played the videos on loop in the briefing room, and went about targeting funding in the Democratic leaders’ home states. The Energy Department on Wednesday terminated more than $7.5 billion in awards, the vast majority for projects in states with Democratic governors and senators.

“The goal here is power, and policy is very much secondary to that,” said Brent Cebul, a history professor at the University of Pennsylvania. “What we’re left with is rancorous politics that are also about retribution.”

President Bill Clinton at a meeting with Newt Gingrich, the Republican speaker, in 1995. Mr. Gingrich said he and Mr. Clinton “sat together for 35 days” in an effort to forge a compromise during a government shutdown.Credit...David Ake/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images